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Hear from the folks that live, breathe and know the national parks best.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for checking out the safe travels podcast. My name is Joey. And in this specific episode, we'll be doing a park preview of Death Valley National Park. We'll be heading there soon to sit down with park rangers to discuss geology, wildlife, dark skies, astrology, and of course, climate.
Speaker 1:In this specific episode, we'll be doing a brief show to give you more details about the park and to get you ready for the upcoming shows. Alright. As mentioned, this is the park preview show for Death Valley National Park. We'll be doing these preview shows prior to each park that we visit to add a little more context and detail to the conversations that we will be having with park rangers. And let's face it, I am not the expert that you all are hoping to hear from.
Speaker 1:And so the exciting part is is that about 99% of the time, I'm learning these facts and these details with you, which to me is really exciting and, I learn a lot when I meet with the park rangers as well. And so this conversation that we're having now is more just added background detail. So when we do sit down with the rangers, it builds on what we talk about here today. So Death Valley was designated as a national park in 1994 by president Bill Clinton. It was originally designated as a national monument in 1933, and it was given that designation to protect it from mining and other interests.
Speaker 1:And when it became a national park in 1994, 90% of the park was designated as wilderness. Death Valley is a part of the Mojave Desert, and the land is the homeland for the Tambisha Shoshone people who have called the desert their home since time immemorial. 1, 100, 000 visitors attend the park annually, and just 1 5th of those visitors come during the summer months, but we will talk about that a little later on when we talk about the average temperatures by a group of pioneers who got lost during the winter months of 18/49/18/50. And during that time period, a group of them got rescued. Unfortunately, 1 member of the group passed away.
Speaker 1:And after they got rescued, they looked back at the desert landscape and said goodbye to Death Valley and that is how Death Valley got its name today and that is the name that has stuck with the park ever since. The location of the park is a 130 miles from Las Vegas about a 2 hour trip from the strip. And if you are in Southern California, it is about 250 miles from Los Angeles which depending on traffic could be between 4 6 hours. The closest California city to the national park is Lone Pine, California which is a destination for a lot of movies that have been filmed there. It's also kind of a home base for travelers that may go visit Mount Whitney up in the Inyo Forest, and it is the largest national park in the lower 48 spanning over 3, 000, 000 acres.
Speaker 1:The second largest park in the lower 48 is Yellowstone National Park, which is in Wyoming and it is 2, 200, 000 acres. The climate, as I alluded to earlier, is quite extreme. It is the hottest place on earth, in fact, and a little unsolicited information about myself, I am a native Phoenician. So I was born in Phoenix, Arizona where it is quite hot there during the summers, but I've lived in California for nearly 6 years now. And I have lost all of that native blood when it comes to being able to take on the heat because anything above 80 feels pretty extreme to me nowadays.
Speaker 1:Anything below 60 also feels pretty extreme. So I know everybody that is listening from locations that do get a bit of extreme weather. I'm sure you're rolling your eyes right now but that is the truth. Checking the forecast for when I go, it'll be about a 105 degrees during the day and about 75 degrees at night so it should be a fun few days there for me. But if you are looking to attend Death Valley National Park during the busy months that would be November through February, you're looking at temperatures averaging around 65 through 70 degrees.
Speaker 1:And in the middle of the summer months, you're looking at temperatures regularly past a 110 degrees. And the park being the hottest place on Earth, as you can imagine, is also 1 of the driest places. It gets an average rainfall of 2 and a third inches of rain a year. However, we'll go more in-depth on this with the park rangers, but this past year was a bit of an anomaly as they had a 6 month run where they had nearly 5 inches of rain, and that created a temporary lake, within Death Valley. So really interesting and it was a bit of a hot topic amongst, park scores of the last few months.
Speaker 1:So we'll get into detail on that specifically, when we sit down with the rangers. Also, I almost omitted the fact on why Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. That is because on July 10th, 1913 at Furnace Creek, where the main visitor center is within Death Valley, it is the hub for the park. They reached a temperature of a 134 degrees, which is the hottest recorded air temperature ever in the entire world. Death Valley is very diverse when it comes to geology as very extreme landscapes.
Speaker 1:In fact, it has the lowest place in North America that is Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet below sea level Yet somehow not too far away is Telescope Peak which you can see from Badwater Basin and that sits 11, 000 feet above sea level And that is the most dramatic vertical relief in such close proximity in America as it's about a 2 mile difference between being at the bottom of Badwater Basin and being at the top of Telescope Peak. And then even more interesting, about a 100 miles away in the Inyo Forest bordering Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park sits Mount Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the lower 40 eights that is sitting at 14, 505 feet. So you have some drastic landscape surrounding this vast desert landscape, which boasts the hottest place on earth, and it also boasts the lowest place in North America. So super interesting there. It also has plenty of sand dunes, craters, and this area called the Devil's Golf Course, which is a large salt pan that used to have a lake that was believed to be about 600 feet deep.
Speaker 1:Again, we'll go a lot more in-depth in all of this and all of the geological features within the park in the next couple of weeks. Wildlife, believe it or not, is abundant there. 1 of the things that I find really interesting about the wildlife in Death Valley is that all these animals have adapted to being able to survive without mass amount of water around them. So the kangaroo rats, for instance, that are in the park, they have adapted to not needing water their entire lives while the bighorn sheep can go several days without drinking water and then when it does find a water source, it can drink several gallons at a time to hydrate itself for the coming days. So all the animals within the national park, and in the surrounding areas are very acclimated with the desert as you can imagine.
Speaker 1:There's a number of different animals that live within the park including predators. There's also a wide array of birds, reptiles, fish, and amphibians. So we'll go really into detail with the park rangers that deal with the wildlife in the park. And then 1 of the big drawing points towards Death Valley is the night sky. So Death Valley is 1 of the darkest places in the United States.
Speaker 1:And according to the Dark Sky Association, the park is rated as a gold tier dark sky park, which is the highest rating of darkness that the organization gives out. Nearby Joshua Tree, which is often a famous spot for stargazing is a silver tier, so a step below Death Valley National Park. And gold tier essentially means that when you look up into the sky, you're looking at the sky that people a long time ago used to be able to see before cities were built. So gold tier essentially means a night sky that you used to be able to see before light pollution took over. So really interesting, and a huge drawing point towards Death Valley.
Speaker 1:In fact, there's only a few Gold Tier national parks in the entire United States, Death Valley being 1 of them, Big Bend in Texas, Canyonlands in Utah, and Great Basin in Nevada. So there's a lot of draw to Death Valley, a lot of interesting things, especially if you are okay with the heat. And if not, you can always go during the winter time where the temperatures are a lot better. But again, a lot of these details that we briefly touched on today will go way more in-depth in, with the park rangers in the next couple of weeks And this will be my first time at Death Valley National Park, so I'm very excited to hike around and get familiar with the desert landscape. I know the sunrises and the sunsets in the park are known to be quite beautiful depending on where you're at in the park.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of great, as I mentioned, geological features within it and so I'm really excited to explore it. And I'm even more excited to sit down with the rangers and, get more educated on the park and get more educated with you all and continue to share my love for these national parks with you. So thank you for listening to this park preview. And in the coming weeks, we'll have a lot more content coming from Death Valley. So make sure you follow on social at safe travels pod on Instagram or at safe travels pod.com for the website.
Speaker 1:And then if you're wanting to watch these videos, the park rangers, make sure to check out our YouTube at safe travels pod. Also, almost forgot this very important detail, but for all my sci fi and Star Wars nerds, Death Valley has been the landscape for several Star Wars moments including in the Mandalorian and A New Hope. So it is quite literally picturesque especially with the Alabama Hills being right around the corner, a very popular filming spot that butts up against Sierra Nevadas. So anyways, until next time. Safe travels.